Security elements (or “secure elements”) are employed in many areas, for example in the form of SIM cards for proving access permission for a mobile radio network or in the form of chip cards for carrying out electronic cash transactions. Their employment frequently involves interaction with a reader or end device intended for the particular application, for example a mobile telephone or a terminal. Except in the case of very simple applications, the security element is as a rule required to have a processor with at least one application program for executing the application running thereon. Many security elements are equipped with an operating system besides an application program, with the program code of the application program as well as the program code representing the operating system being stored in a non-volatile memory of the security element and being executed by its processor during operation.
To permit versatile use, there is a trend toward equipping modern security elements, for example SIM cards or chip cards, with more and more functionalities in terms of hardware and software. There are known e.g. dual-interface cards, which have an NFC interface, on the one hand, and a contact-type interface, on the other hand, to be able to communicate with a respectively accordingly configured reader both contactlessly and using physical contacts. In order that the security element can access said different interfaces, the operating system of the security element must have stored therein, besides an operating-system kernel defining the basic functions of the operating system such as the supplying of a file system, as a rule corresponding operating-system modules in the form of special drivers for controlling the corresponding interfaces.
It is not unusual that upon the manufacture of such a security element having a multiplicity of functionalities it is not yet clear how said security element will ultimately be used, i.e. which of the security element's functionalities will actually be actively required upon use in the field. It may thus be for example that only one of the two interfaces of a dual-interface card is actually employed upon use in the field. To be prepared for all possible fields of use, however, a security element is as a rule so configured upon its manufacture that all the security element's functionalities are available upon use in the field. This requires for example that the security element's operating system must already support or supply all said functionalities upon delivery of the security element. This can result in the problem that the security element's operating system is “oversized” for its actual use in the field, i.e. supplies and supports functionalities that are not needed in actual use of the security element. Such “operating-system overhead” might for example have an adverse effect on the performance of the security element.
Against this background, the present invention is based on the object of providing an improved method for operating a security element as well as an accordingly configured security element.